Piers Akerman

Piers Akerman
–,
Tuesday,
October,
31,
2006,(9:42am)

Why should Australia sign Kyoto when signing would put our economy at risk and we will probably meet our emission target, anyway. Also, why should we handicap ourselves when China and India - among the world’s greatest polluters - aren’t covered by the agreement and their annual INCREASES in emissions are multiples of Australia’s emission output?

Piers Akerman
–,
Sunday,
October,
22,
2006,(12:02am)

THE politically correct have excelled themselves in naming an inner-Sydney harbour area after Barangaroo, an 18th-century Aboriginal woman known as “a scold, and a vixen” whom nobody pitied.

Perhaps in the eyes of those who cling to the myth that everything Aboriginal is beyond criticism, naming a 22ha prime port precinct after such a pitiless termagant is a form of retribution for real or imagined wrongs committed by white colonists, but a better role model could have been chosen.

Piers Akerman
–,
Wednesday,
October,
18,
2006,(4:33pm)

FORMER NSW premier Bob Carr last week used The Bulletin magazine to lecture Malcolm Turnbull about water conservation.

Patronisingly writing “a seasoned politician would recognise an environmentally unsaleable proposition stalking you at 50 paces’’ he used the wit he once reserved for diary descriptions of dullard Cabinet colleagues to decry schemes which Turnbull, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister with responsibility for water, has floated as partial solutions to the nation’s water crisis.

Carr, who once worked as a journalist at the Packer magazine with Turnbull before both sought other careers, did not draw spare his former colleague as he assessed the issue.

Curiously, however, the former premier omitted to mention that though he ran NSW for 10 years he not only did absolutely zero to meet the growing pressures on its water supply and actually banned the big dam project that would have gone a long way to easing the water crisis.

Admission of his massive failure must have been lost in the editing.

Nor did he make any reference to the extremely sensible demand of current Opposition Leader Peter Debnam that the Carr-Iemma Government take practical low-cost measures now, while dam levels are at record lows, and send in the bulldozers and diggers to deepen the reservoirs and significantly increase their capacities, in some cases by up to 40 per cent and more.

Carr’s attack was followed up this week by ALP glove puppet, Clive Hamilton, head of the Canberra-based, left-leaning think-tank, the Australia Institute, who challenged the Federal Government’s plan to assist farmers and small communities suffering because of the drought.

Hamilton, whose writings reflect the politics of envy, has had his economic arguments ridiculed by Labor figures including former federal opposition leader Mark Latham and former NSW treasurer Michael Egan - “Hamilton’s garbage is just silly, dangerous, left-wing crap’’.

While claiming his institute is politically independent, the impression given by the makeup of the board suggests otherwise.

Among those with well known political views are current chairman Meredith Edwards, a one-time consultant to former social services minister and prominent left-winger Brian Howe; ACTU president Sharan Burrow; Molly Harris Olson, a former Greenpeace activist who presented global economic activist group S11’s declaration to the World Economic Forum; Barbara Pocock, a former advisor to Democrats Senator Natasha Stott Despoja; Hugh Saddler, and Mark Wootton, prominent environmentalists; Spencer Zifcak, a rights activist; and Sarah Maddison, spokesman for the Women’s Electoral Lobby.

The ABC gave extensive time to his view that drought support is bad policy and much of the land currently being farmed shouldn’t be farmed.
Turnbull believes Labor’s bottom-line is Australia should import all its food instead of learning to use its water efficiently.

Turnbull believes the climate may get hotter and drier in time and some areas which are now marginal could become unusable but he is also keen to see more farming in the wetter northern areas of the nation.

He is adamant the Government will not be telling farmers where and how they should farm because “these people are quite capable of making their own decisions’’.

“We should create a Ministry of Northern Development and Water to build on our natural advantage as an island continent,’’ he said.
“As the south gets drier, the north should get wetter and we need to develop long-term plans to develop that agricultural potential.’’

Even without climate change, Heffernan says the north receives 60 per cent of the nation’s water and the Murray-Darling system receives just 4.2 per cent of the run-off.

“The 23,000 gigalitres in the Murray-Darling are dwarfed by the volumes that flow through the three major systems, the Timor, the Gulf and the north-east catchment,’’ he said.

“The Timor catchment receives 78,000 gigalitres, of which about 50 are used; the Gulf gets more than 90,000 gigalitres, of which about 55 are used and the north-east gets some 80,000 gigalitres, with 300-to-400 being used.
“There are millions of acres which could be suitable for agriculture and there is a market of 600 million people in northern China,’’ he said.

“We should be looking at the potential climate change offers, not the disadvantage,’’ he said.
Labor’s view seems to be that the dam must be half-empty and should be kept that way.

The Turnbull-Heffernan vision would benefit all Australians, not least the depressing followers of the dismal Hamiltonian line in negativity.

Piers Akerman
–,
Monday,
October,
16,
2006,(10:33am)

MARK Scott, CEO and editor-in-chief of “our” ABC has now acknowledged what many within the nation’s largest media organisation choose to ignore â€” the bias that exists within the institution.
In a bold move, Scott, appointed in July, yesterday outlined a new policy which specifically targets the editorial “health” of the taxpayer-funded broadcaster and publisher.

Piers Akerman
–,
Saturday,
October,
14,
2006,(11:40pm)

THE Federal Opposition recoiled sharply from last week’s record low unemployment figures, which demonstrated that its scare campaign on the Work Choices legislation had failed just as comprehensively as Labor’s campaign against the GST.

Piers Akerman
–,
Thursday,
October,
12,
2006,(8:53am)

THE tortured English used by North Korea’s Central News Agency captures something of the insanity prevailing in the rogue state but little of its menacing threat to global stability.
The personal fiefdom of coiffured madman, Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, North Korea now poses the greatest threat in our region following its test of a nuclear device coupled with its total disregard for international law.

Profile

Piers has been one of The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph's best-read columnists since 1993. One of the nation's most respected journalists he has worked in New York, London, Washington and Los Angeles.